Spartanburg gets failing grade in mental healthcare

Thursday

May 16, 2013 at 6:18 PM

A new report shows just how much Spartanburg County's mental health system is struggling.

By DUSTIN WYATTdustin.wyatt@shj.com

A new report reveals how much Spartanburg County's mental health system is struggling to meet demand.According to data by Collaborative Research, a behavioral health consulting firm based in Dawsonville, Ga., 84 percent of patients in Spartanburg county who have a mental illness do not get their needs met after they seek help from a facility."This is the statistic that is most pressing here," said Tracy Kulik, president of Collaborative Research. "This is a very disturbing statistic. People have a need, but they aren't served."She says behavioral health in Spartanburg County has hit rock bottom, and the county does a worse job handling the issue than other counties across the nation."One thing to give the community credit for is that, from the beginning, they understood that this is too big of an issue" to ignore, she said.Several local organizations and one state organization are now working together to improve the problem and seek feasible solutions.The United Way of the Piedmont has joined the Mary Black Foundation, the Spartanburg Regional Hospital Foundation, the Spartanburg County Foundation and the S.C. Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Service on a behavioral health initiative.Behavioral health is an issue "that has plagued our community for a number of years," said Chris Steed, president and CEO of the United Way of the Piedmont. "I am heartened by the individuals and organizations that have committed themselves to addressing mental health and substance abuse in Spartanburg County."In order to understand the issue, the partners brought in Kulik to help. Over the past six months, she has worked in conjunction with community partners to identify specific needs and gaps in Spartanburg's behavioral health system.Kulik revealed the data during a meeting Wednesday afternoon.What she found, she said, is that Spartanburg has a lack of psychiatrists and a shortage of resources.As a result, only 26 percent of the mentally ill population gets treatment.Steed says mental health has always been a challenge to this community, but the problems were exacerbated in 2007-08, when the state cut funding to public health entities, particularly the Department of Mental Health and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission."These reductions in funding over time have put additional strains on an already strained system," Steed said.In 2010, because of cuts in state funding, the Raymond C. Eubanks Detoxification Center closed. The facility on North Spring Street served about 11,000 people from the time it opened in 1995 to the time it shuttered.Mental health services took another hit when the PACE Center, a nonprofit committed to providing counseling services on a sliding pay scale basis, closed for the same reasons in December 2011.The services that did survive are struggling to meet the community's needs. Elizabeth Boaze, assistant director of Spartanburg Area Mental Health, says the organization's budget has shrunk 40 percent over the past seven to 10 years.When asked whether patients who enter the facility leave with their needs met, Boaze said: "We try to do what we can.""We have more clients than we have staff," she added. "We don't have enough doctors."She's optimistic that a community approach to resolving the problem is a step in the right direction."Dealing with behavioral health is a community effort, it's not one agency," she said. "It's not the responsibility of any one group; it needs to be a partnership of the whole community taking responsibility."Steed said the organizations in the partnership realized the county was facing a challenge, and that it was time to step in.Plans for improvement began in April 2012, when Spartanburg Mayor Junie White directed the Mayor's Committee for People with Disabilities to convene a leadership summit to study the behavioral health crisis in Spartanburg. The meeting at the University of South Carolina Upstate was attended by nearly 100 mental health professionals and advocates, along with many community leaders. Participants were challenged to consider ways they and their agencies could make a difference in addressing the behavioral health needs of our community.Each organization in the behavioral health initiative contributed $5,000, the S.C. Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Service gave an additional $7,500."While it's not our responsibility to figure out the solution," Steed said. "There is a role that we play in this community to identify ways that we can try to strengthen the system we have."The organizations involved in the Initiative say Kulik was hired to do three things:* Help them understand the system;* Help them find the problem;* Give them direction and hope for the future.The goal of the initiative is to make Spartanburg County's behavioral health system a national model."We will be working to take the report and recommendations and begin making an action plan to take us forward," said Heather Witt, senior director of community investment for the United Way of the Piedmont. "I think over the coming months, the task force will be able to make significant strides toward developing an action plan."